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Forrester to Calibrate the Virtual World
In the US, Forrester Consulting has been commissioned by a consortium of virtual world companies to help define standard marketing and engagement measures for the virtual space.
The project is being led by agency Millions of Us, in partnership with virtual platform operators Sulake, Gaia Interactive, Metaplace, SceneCaster, Doppelganger, Vivaty and WeeWorld.
'As we expanded our business to offer clients campaigns in the industry's top virtual worlds, it became increasingly apparent that large advertisers require clarity regarding user demographics and definitions of success,' explained Reuben Steiger, CEO of Millions of Us. 'We've moved beyond the banner and need to work together to create a unified set of practices to quantify the value of engagement.'
Steiger stressed that as well as providing internal measurements of consumer response to virtual world marketing campaigns, firms need to offer their advertising clients 'standardized, credibly objective ROI assessments' to help them justify their growing budgets and expenditure.
He added that the study will start from the premise that the maturing virtual worlds industry is no longer in the 'experimental' stage, and now needs to quantify and measure the quality of engagement rather than CPMs (or cost per thousand impressions).
Lauren Bigelow, GM and SVP of Marketing at WeeWorld endorsed the project by saying that the virtual world industry needs to take leadership in developing metrics that reflect its current level of activity.
Web sites are at www.forrester.com and www.millionsofus.com .
Last week, marketing services agency GSD&M Idea City and virtual worlds developer Metaversatility partnered to launch their IdeaBot platform, which allows research to take place while the respondent is still 'in' the virtual space (www.mrweb.com/drno/news8142.htm ).
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